Air pollution in Tasmania

Air pollution in Tasmania is one of the priority areas of the Pollution Information Tasmania, a community group dedicated to investigating and documenting pollution in the state of Tasmania, Australia.

One of the main sources of seasonal air pollution in the Tasmanian landscape is from post logging burns. Once forests are logged, they are seasonally burnt by the forest industry, generally high intensity burns, ignited by a napalm type substance from rotary wing aircraft. Smoke emissions from these post logging burns sometimes spread accross the landscape impacting upon the health of the community.

Angelika Allen from Quality Air Tasmania has been compiling diarys of these smoke pollution events and is a regularly blog writer, see "Tasmanian Times" [tasmaniantimes.com/.../Why_Air_Pollution_is_an_issue_in_Tasmania_9-9- 09.doc]. More information to come.

The latest contribution from the QAT group is a submission to the Australian Government's Ambient Air Quality - National Evironmental Protection Measures (NEPMs) review process in August 2010

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Pesticide Spray Drift
In response to government inaction and growing community concerns about exposure to pesticide spray drift, the National Toxics Network has published A Community Information and Action Kit: The Threat of Pesticide Spray Drift. . The Kit was launched at a public forum in Tasmania in collaboration with affected community groups. Over 2000 kits have been distributed through NGO networks and communities. It provides essential information about pesticide regulation in each state or territory of Australia, the dangers of pesticide drift, how it occurs and what you can do to take action in response to an incident. The kit includes a Pesiticide Spray Drift Report Form to help you collect important information should you be exposed to spray drift or you witness a spray drift incident.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Food quality in Tasmania
 * Landfill pollution in Tasmania
 * Marine pollution in Tasmania
 * Public & environmental health issues in Tasmania
 * Water pollution in Tasmania

External resources

 * Clean Air Tas is a very useful activist website includes information about air pollution issues and the impact on public health as a result of forestry burns and other burnoffs.
 * Clean Air Revival provides public education about the medical hazards of exposure to wood smoke and other fine particulate pollution.
 * Operation Smoke Watch is about the community recording incidents of fires and smoke around Tasmania.

External articles

 * Amy Norton, "Air pollution may raise preterm birth risk", Reuters, September 24, 2009.
 * Janet Raloff, "Pollutants: Up in flames", "ScienceNews", December 2, 2009. ‘Forest fires can bake decades worth of pollutants out of soils and loft them into the air,’ Air pollution from high intensity forestry plantation burns after clear felling potentially contains much more than merely soot particles. It now has been shown that forest fires have the potential to release toxic industrial and agricultural pollutants – such as pesticides and PCBs - previously trapped on soil. After glomming onto smoke particles, these chemicals can hitch long-distance rides — sometimes across oceans — before they’re grounded again and contaminate some new region, scientists report.